Education Lost in the Course

THE LIGHT OF ANDAMANS | VOL: 35 | ISSUE: 26 | 03 FEBRUARY 2012

Education Lost in the Course

The major casualty in the fight between two government-owned educational institutions is unsurprisingly education itself. When do these people get time to teach when they are all engaged in disputes related with land and construction?

The dispute between TGCE and Boys School is now a long-drawn battle. The crisis at Dr BR Ambedkar Institute of Technology is also of similar nature. Huge edifices and facilities fill the DBRAIT campus which was even awarded ISO-9001. However, students of the institution rue the quality of education. With acute shortage of qualified and experienced faculties, students have started deserting the only engineering college of the territory. Moreover, the internecine cold war between the HoD and faculties affect the process of education adversely.

TGCE is another institution, which has the best buildings and facilities in the Islands. But, the quality of the teachers churned out by the institution tells a different story. Last year's CTET examination was a litmus test for the 'premier' institution, where all exams are conducted internally without any external supervision. "We have no data about the results," said a senior staff of TGCE. In fact, the overall result was far below average. The institution runs with the support of guest faculties. Speaking to LOA, a few students of the Integrated Course said that there are times, when students even do not know the syllabus. They were baffled when they saw the question paper. The problem with the integrated course is that without qualified faculties, they come out of the institution lacking knowledge in the subject. Otherwise, too, the institution has failed in preparing quality teachers.

Students who undergo a nine-month B Ed course get very little time in academics. They are always engaged in various extra-curricular activities and cultural programmes. B Ed should have been an intensive one-year training course. But, TGCE has better plans for the institution rather than the students. The construction spree continues without any break with all support from the Administration.

When on one hand, there are hundreds of government owned educational institutions without basic amenities, a very few institutions get all the favours and come up with five-star facilities. Some call it the vision of the HoDs of such institutions, but others call it unequal treatment and nepotism. If someone raises finger at this lop-sided approach, they call it jealousy.

The Govt Boys School, which had about 2 hectares of land around it with five playgrounds and a massive auditorium, has now been pushed to a corner with every inch of its land occupied by others. Now, if someone calls the occupant a visionary or an encroacher is a debatable issue.

Tagore Govt College of Education has just about 150 students. The kind of money spent on such a minuscule number is mind-boggling. Dr Jaidev Singh is a smooth talker. He knows how to get things done. The frequently arranged programmes inviting VIPs to inaugurate one or the other event; requesting them to make speeches works as a potent ego-massaging tool to ingratiate them and get the proposals through. The highly mobile directors of education unaware of the sanctity of an educational institution give in without a protest making it that much easier for TGCE to get what it wants.

Magnificent buildings and ostentations are no substitute for hard work. Let the performance and results speak for the institutions rather than the grandeur and opulence of the concrete structures and furnishings.